Truth and Reconciliation Ch. 02

Jason was excited. More than excited, he was overjoyed.

The past few days had been a blur. Late last week, Jason had heard back about the app development project.

They had watched his video and were interested in moving forward with some of his ideas. Naturally, however, there were a couple caveats.

Firstly, Jason would have to sign a document that, in essence, allowed the employer to use his ideas royalty-free. 'Whatever,' Jason thought. Such clauses were pretty standard, and it wasn't like he had come up with anything particularly groundbreaking.

Secondly, they wanted him to make the app for Apple before he did an Android version.

That was unfortunate. Jason had messed around with Swift, Apple's currently preferred programming language, but he wasn't exactly proficient.

He had no doubt he could get it done, but his code would be sloppy, and it would take twice as long.

Any other time, Jason still would have accepted. However, his personal plans required him to complete the Android version of the app as soon as possible.

It sounded like the company was ready to sign with him, but they were still working out the details, and this could actually work in Jason's favor.

After signing a non-disclosure agreement, the company had sent Jason the complete project plan.

As is often the case, the people making the job posting and the people in charge of the project were not good at communicating with each other.

As a result, the project's scope was significantly different from what Jason had bid on—doubly so with the addition of his ideas.

Luckily Jason had the entire weekend to go over everything because it gave him time to write up an updated proposal and to do one other significant bit of research.

Jason's detailed proposal, with updated pricing, would be waiting for the folks at Holistic Audio Solutions, LLC, (HAS) when they logged in Monday morning.

HAS was almost certainly a shell corporation designed to obfuscate the identity of a larger, more recognizable company that was actually behind the app.

(It was a common practice that enabled well-known companies to cash in on the unethical and often predatory practices used to make "free" apps profitable without tarnishing their reputation.)

The updated pricing in the proposal was fair and proportional to the increase in the project's scope. So, Jason hoped that the project leads wouldn't balk at the new price tag.

Regardless, the additional monies were necessary for Jason to implement his plan.

He was confident in his ability to write the Android version of the app quickly, and his personal goals required that said version was completed first.

In order to meet the company's requirements of an Apple version first, Jason would use the increased revenue to hire a team of developers somewhere in Asia or Eastern Europe.

That team would translate his Java code into the equivalent Swift code. (Naturally, it wasn't just as simple as changing the syntax of the code. A lot of it would be that simple, but a lot of it would also have to be rewritten entirely.)

If he could pull it off, Jason would have the Android version of the app done quickly while still meeting the contract's requirements.

Unfortunately, this also meant that Jason would be making the same money—possibly even less—but doing three times the work.

It wasn't until Thursday morning, a full week after Jason made his video, that everything was signed, and Jason could officially get to work.

The extra week had actually been excellent for Jason, as it gave him time to get a head start. He was going to need it to meet the ambitious timetable he'd agreed to.

One last problem remained...how was he going to pay the team he'd hired.

Thankfully he was able to get HAS to agree to a deliverable-based pay schedule. When he reached each deliverable milestone, he'd turn over his work, and they'd pay him.

He set up a similar system with his team, so barring any significant delays, everything should work out just fine.

Of course, Jason was no stranger to the ebbs and flows of fate. (After all, Carl Orff was one of his favorite composers.) So, while he happily worked on his project during the afternoon, he fully expected his mother would find some way to wreck his mood by that evening.

He was right.

That evening, after all his chores were done and he was just about to retreat to his bedroom, Janice called him into the kitchen.

Jason found her sitting at the kitchen table. "Sit down," she said, a hint of annoyance in her tone.

Jason sat. They both knew what this conversation was about.

"I know you haven't been going to class, Jason." She stared at Jason, waiting for an answer, but he just stared back at her. He was wearing a practiced expression, one of meekness and subservience.

It made him sick to his stomach to lower himself before this woman, but he'd been here before. He knew that as long as his mother felt like she was in control and that he was already miserable, the punishment wouldn't be quite as bad.

There was no dodging punishment, it was inevitable, but he'd gotten good at deflecting it slightly.

"I checked the trust's statement today. Your college messed up; they never cashed the cheques I sent them." Her blatant lie further infuriated Jason, but he kept his expression neutral.

He knew better than to call her on her lie, but he also knew better than to play dumb.

If he called her out, she would deny it, call him a liar, and punish him twice as hard.

If Jason played it too dumb, she would know that he knew the truth and punish him out of guilt, shame, or, more likely, embarrassment.

"All they told me was that I had a balance due, and I was being removed from my classes. Oh, and that I would forfeit the fees I'd already paid." Everything Jason said was true; at worst, it might be a slight lie of omission.

"Oh, that's terrible," his mother said, touching her heart and affecting a tone of false sympathy. "You worked so hard for that money."

Jason just nodded in response.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, her tone changing to accusation and anger. "And what have you been doing all day if not going to school?"

Jason had anticipated this part of the conversation. He couldn't tell her the truth because she would attempt to sabotage him. He had to redirect her anger toward something innocuous by using a believable lie.

He hesitated in replying as he tensed his body and added a look of panic to his eyes. (This too, was a well-practiced maneuver.)

"Jason," his mother demanded, "tell me right now what you've been wasting your time on!"

"Xbox," Jason answered, looking defeated.

"I knew it!" Janice exclaimed. "I never should have let you keep that ridiculous box."

"It was a gift from Aunt Jenny," Jason pleaded. "I've had it for four years and have almost never been able to play it."

'God damn,' Jason thought to himself, 'I deserve an Oscar for this performance.'

"Go get it. Go to your room right now and bring me that stupid game box," there was anger in Janice's voice, but also a hint of smug satisfaction.

"Noo, Mom...please!" Jason begged.

"Now! I want all of it: the controllers, the wires, and all the cartridges."

'Cartridges?' Jason thought. 'My mother is neither old enough nor out of touch enough to think that games still use cartridges."

Jason found the concept so amusing that he almost broke character. But, he managed to keep it together because this next bit of acting was needed to sell the whole deception.

Standing up quickly, Jason banged his chair back into place and stormed out of the room, heading for his bedroom. Once inside, he slammed his bedroom door and let out an exasperated shout.

'Well shit,' Jason thought to himself. 'That little display is going to cost me, but I needed to sell this whole "Xbox" bullshit. With any luck, Mom will be placated, and she'll never consider messing with my computer.'

Five minutes later, Jason returned to the kitchen, Xbox in hand. He set it down in front of Janice, looking like he was about to cry.

"Here."

"Good...," Janice paused for a moment before continuing. "I'm going to cut you a little slack because I know how important college is to you. But don't you *dare* disrespect me like that again.

"Apologize and complete the extra chores I assign you tomorrow, and you'll be forgiven. Understood, young man?

"I'm waiting...," Janice raised her eyebrows threateningly.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Jason replied, trying to affect the perfect balance of repentance and seething anger.

"Fine. Go to your room and think about how you've behaved. There will be a list of extra chores stuck to the fridge in the morning. I expect them to be done before I get home from work.

"Tomorrow evening, I'll speak with your sisters. The responsibilities they had been helping you with will return to you. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Goodnight, Jason," Janice was obviously dismissing her son.

"Mom, what about school?" Jason quickly interjected.

"You can try again next semester. I'm sorry." The weird thing was, at least judging by the look in her eyes, Jason thought she might actually be a little sorry.

"Okay... Goodnight." With that, Jason headed back to his room, trying to look morose while he really wanted to skip joyfully down the hall.

Everything, literally every aspect of that interaction, had gone precisely as Jason had planned. Thankfully his mother had become somewhat predictable over the years. She still seemed to think of him as a fourteen-year-old boy, not an autodidactic entrepreneur in his mid-twenties.

She thought she had once again sabotaged Jason's plans, and in the short term, that was true. But, Jason had moved beyond the scholastic ambitions she was aware of.

He had bigger plans now. Much bigger plans in which she was to play a prominent role.

'I'm gonna make that bitch mine,' Jason mused. 'And then we'll see how smug she looks with my dick buried in her throat.'

Jason was briefly taken aback by his own lewd thought.

"Where did that come from?" he wondered aloud.

It didn't matter. That was the plan, after all. Jason honestly couldn't tell if he was genuinely attracted to his own mother or if this new interest in her was purely about domination and humiliation.

'Why do I have to pick one?' he questioned himself silently. 'Why can't it be all of the above?'

The thought caused a wicked smile to play across Jason's face as he kicked off his pants and climbed into bed.

'Hell yeah,' he continued. 'Sucking my dick is the *least* of what that bitch is going to do before I'm done. She's going to do it all, and she's going to thank me for the privilege.'

As Jason's imagination began to serve up images of this planned future, he reached down to fish his stiffening cock out of his boxers.

With a scenario involving his subservient mother playing out in his mind, Jason went about releasing some of the stress he'd been building up over the past few days.

Shit got real after that.

Not only was Jason working against a personal deadline, but he was trying to meet another that was contractually obligated.

And, as if that wasn't enough, further adding to the frenetic pace of his life was the increased household workload.

While going to school, his sisters had picked up some of his responsibilities, but that ended after Janice confronted Jason.

To his frustration, Evie and Beth were all too happy to dump the work back in his lap.

In general, he believed his sisters liked him and were kind to him. Still, after years of him being the family whipping boy, even they couldn't help but take advantage.

He'd always been pretty forgiving toward his sisters. His mother set the example after all. It was her fault. They were just following the pattern she had established.

This time was different, though. First, his sisters weren't young and naive girls anymore (not that Beth ever really was from his perspective); they were both adults. They should know better.

Second, they both knew how important school was to him. They'd each encouraged him when he'd started classes. Part of him thought for sure that they'd have his back this time. But they didn't.

Beth was more than happy to return the workload to Jason so she could free up even more time to go out clubbing—or whatever it was she did several nights a week.

Evie likewise was eager to take back her precious time. How else could she spend endless hours on social media posting selfies and teasing boys?

For the first time, probably ever, Jason realized that his sisters were just as much part of the problem as his mother was.

Maybe they also needed to be part of the solution.

Jason decided to set those thoughts aside for now. He was just too busy.

Despite being far from ideal, the situation was manageable. All of the household stuff was work Jason had been doing for years. He was so efficient and skilled he deserved a regular column in Good Housekeeping magazine.

Like most things, Jason was also rather skilled at making everything look like it was more difficult than it actually was. He learned this little tactic over the years as a defense against his mother. As long as she thought he was overworked, she wouldn't give him more work.

So, he'd spent years learning how to hide his free time and obfuscate his leisure.

The only difference this time was that rather than leisure, Jason was using his "free time" to work on his programming contract.

Over the past several weeks, things had really come together and were at the point now that Jason had a working—if somewhat clunky—app.

Two weeks in, Jason realized he needed more help, so he subcontracted out the UI design. This now meant that, at best, he was going to walk away from a few months worth of work with a couple hundred dollars in his pocket.

It was frustrating because it meant that if his plan didn't work, his eventual emancipation would be postponed for months—if not longer.

Even so, Jason was feeling confident. The core functionality of his app was working well.

In principle, the app was designed to use brainwave synching tones, subliminal messages, and hypnotic conditioning to help the user with their life goals.

The audio would play overtop of whatever else the device was playing. This saved HAS from having to license music.

For now, the different types of audio overlay were based on usage patterns from the user.

With enough data, usually around 4 listening sessions, the app would automatically add to the next level of overlay.

So the user would listen multiple times with just tones. Then it would change to tones and subliminals. And, eventually, the hypnotic messages would be added.

Particularly ingenious was the feature which allowed the user to record their own messages.

They could choose to read from a script (eventually, there would be many to choose from, but for now, only the samples Jason wrote existed), or they could just wing it.

All of that was on the up and up, and thus far, it worked really well. But there was some other functionality, below the surface, that was perhaps a little unethical.

As is pretty standard for any such app, the software was designed to send telemetry data back to the company servers. They would use this data to improve the app...and to sell to advertisers and data aggregators.

What was not so standard was the backdoor that Jason built himself.

Jason could get into any phone that had his software installed. While the app was running, he could view the camera, listen to the microphone, and alter the audio being played. (Mostly, it was still limited for now.)

He also had complete access to all the telemetry data, which, in addition to app-specific stats, showed Jason GPS data, wifi connection data, and more.

At first, Jason couldn't believe everything he had access to. For years now, he'd been hearing all about how Apple and Google were taking privacy seriously. He thought all that private info would be locked down.

But that's not how it works. Both Apple and Google make BILLIONS of dollars off of app sales. And, as it turns out, app sales are powered by scraping all of the user's personal data.

That's not a free-to-play epic online RPG you're playing. No, it's a data harvesting tool that just happens to show you cool CGI dragons.

That's not a free platform for keeping in touch with all your friends and family. No, it's artificial intelligence that tracks everything you do online, so the company can sell that data for about $12 a year.

Jason learned that a savvy user CAN project their privacy...mostly...if they give up all those nifty "free" services. But the average user is an open book to whomever cares to purchase their data.

It was that philosophy of lax privacy that Jason was taking full advantage of.

Of course, there were still weeks worth of work to be done on this app. And, if he got lucky, Jason may even be able to turn this into an ongoing gig. But, it was far enough along that it was time to start testing.

And Jason knew just who was to be his first test subject...

Frustratingly, it was a couple more days before Jason was able to get his younger sister, Evelin, alone.

His first choice for a test subject was Beth. She was totally into all the woo-woo kinda stuff. She would certainly be a potential customer for the finished product. But he wasn't that close with her, and she probably wouldn't try the app just to do him a favor.

On the other hand, Evie was the closest thing he had to a "friend" in this family. If anyone was going to test out his new app, it would be her.

So he wasn't surprised when she was keen to test it out after explaining what it was and how it worked.

Jason sideloaded the app onto her phone and helped her get set up with an account. There hadn't been time to set up any goal-specific "treatments" yet, so he suggested she just use the relaxation function when she went to bed.

She agreed and promised that she would use the app that night.

Jason knew he had to take this slow, at least at first, so he was calling this "Phase One."

During phase one, the program consisted of straight-up hypnotic tones with no funny business.

He told Evie that it was still in early testing, so there would need to be some tweaking.

She didn't seem to mind, though, as she often listened to music all night anyway. From her perspective, there would be nothing different.

It was three days before Jason finally caught up with Evie to hear about her experience. Naturally, he had checked the telemetry data each morning and could tell that she had been using the app, as promised. And that she'd been listening for about six hours each night.

"Honestly...," Evie started, clearly trying not to hurt Jason's feelings. "I'm not sure if it's working or not."

Jason's disappointment was evident on his face as his sister hurried to console him.

"I mean, it might be working," she added hopefully. "I can say that I've been falling asleep faster...I think. But, I haven't felt any more rested in the morning."

"Well, that's something at least," responded Jason. "I'm going to tweak some things. I'd really appreciate it if you would keep using the app, at least for a few more days."

"Yeah, sure. No problem. Do you need my phone?"

"No, I'll make the changes on the backend. You might get a prompt about updates; if you do, just hit 'Accept' or 'Confirm' or whatever."

"Will do," Evie replied cheerfully as she turned to go about her business.

"Thanks again, Sis. This is a huge help."

Evie just smiled over her shoulder at him, and Jason headed back to his room.

'Okay,' Jason thought. 'Phase one, complete.'

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